Republicans ignoring premise of Comey’s congressional testimony

James Comey’s sworn Senate testimony basically confirms what anyone with a smidgen of mental cognition has known since day one – that Donald Trump is a toxic narcissist whose animal instinct is to breach America’s institutional restraints and enforce personal fealty in the manner of a lawless mob boss.

It’s all there in Comey’s meticulous statement to the Senate Intelligence Committee about his interactions with Trump. At minimum, it’s a damning indictment of Trump’s character (or lack thereof). At its worst, it’s a road map for Trump’s removal. In the words of Philip Allen Lacovara, a former deputy U.S. solicitor general and counsel to the Watergate special prosecutors, “Any experienced prosecutor would see these facts as establishing a prima facie case of obstruction of justice.”

According to Comey, his one-on-one dinner with Trump on Jan. 27 was “an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship. That concerned me greatly, given the FBI’s traditionally independent status in the executive branch.”

Comey told the committee he never felt the need to take notes after speaking with President Bush, and never did that after speaking with President Obama. But he decided to take notes after meeting with President Trump because Comey “was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting.” It’s a historic moment when a high-ranking career public servant publicly calls the president of the United States a liar.

During that meeting, Trump allegedly sought Comey’s “loyalty,” but all the former FBI director was willing to offer was his “honesty” and repeatedly refused to play the loyal toady. As he said in his testimony, referring to Trump’s attempts to interfere with the Russia probe, “it was important to infect the investigative team.”

But Comey paid the price for resisting infection. He was summarily fired. And after lying for a few days about why Comey was fired, Trump told Lester Holt of NBC News – and, subsequently, some Russians visiting the Oval Office – that the firing was indeed done to ease the Russia probe.

Lacovara, the ex-counsel to the Watergate special prosecutors, connects the dots: “Comey’s statement lays out a case against the president that consists of a tidy pattern, beginning with the demand for loyalty, the threat to terminate Comey’s job, the repeated requests to turn off the investigation into former National Security adviser Michael Flynn and the final infliction of career punishment for failing to succumb to the president’s requests, all followed by the president’s own concession about his motive.” That’s obstruction of justice, which, according to the federal statutes, requires “corrupt intent.”

Trump’s supporters

Naturally, that’s not how the senatorial Trumpkins see things. At one point during the hearing, Idaho’s Jim Risch said it was no big deal Trump wanted to kill the Flynn probe – because Trump didn’t specifically order Comey to kill it; he just said he hoped that Comey would let it go.

Risch: “He did not direct you to let it go?”

Comey: “Not in his words, no.”

Risch: “Again those words are not an order? He said ‘I hope.’”

Comey: “I took it as a direction. This is the president of the United States. I took it as a direction.”

Republicans on the committee kept asking: If Trump was abusing your independence so badly, why didn’t you stand up to him more forcefully? Which was a hilarious line of inquiry, given the fact most Republicans have been cowering in a fetal position for the better part of a year, saying and doing nothing about Trump’s serial lies, conflicts of interest, and abuses of power.

Trump’s lawyer, and most Republicans, are actually telling themselves Comey’s testimony exonerates their leader. They’re highlighting the part where Comey says Trump wasn’t personally under investigation (as of March, anyway), but ignoring the part where Comey says he refused to say so publicly because Trump might be targeted in the future. Indeed, if Trump wasn’t a target before, he’s likely to be a target now; Comey told the committee he’s “sure” that special counsel Robert Mueller is looking at Trump for possible obstruction of justice.

Most importantly, Trump’s dwindling defenders are ignoring the overall thrust of Comey’s remarks – the fact that a tinpot autocrat thinks personal loyalty trumps loyalty to the U.S. Constitution.

Basically, it was the word of a boy scout, who took contemporaneous notes, against the word of a demonstrably serial liar. For the sake of this nation, let’s hope the Comey episode can hasten the latter’s departure.

Dick Polman is the national political columnist at NewsWorks/WHYY in Philadelphia nd a “Writer in Residence” at the University of Pennsylvania. Distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.